


Closet

by ArtisticRainey



Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: Gen, angst ahoy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-21
Updated: 2017-01-21
Packaged: 2018-09-19 01:13:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9410939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArtisticRainey/pseuds/ArtisticRainey
Summary: John stares into his closet, looking at his clothes. Angst happens.





	

John’s sitting in the side of the bed, facing the closet. The doors are open. He’s looking in.   
  
There’s a long row of shirts, all carefully pressed and ordered. Each shirt falls from a black hangar, plastic, fabricated from garbage right on the island. The shirts go in order through the spectrum. The blacks and greys, through the maroons, skipping forward to the light yellows, the greens, then the long swathe of blue. Then the lilacs. The pink one at the end. And then the beiges. The trusty beiges. Unobtrusive. Unseen.   
  
John’s toes curl into the rug at the side of the bed. He can’t remember the last time he pulled on a black shirt, or a yellow one - in fact, some of the shirts have never been worn. The price tags hang from the cuffs, twisting lightly in the AC. Most are gifts from his grandmother. John doesn’t have much need for shirts in space.   
  
Beside the shirts, there’s a parade of pants - crisp straight lines, carefully ironed creases. They’re all lined up, like soldiers waiting to go into battle. They’re waiting, very still, not even a quiver. None of their hems are hanging. None of the hems are even frayed. Perfectly kept in perfect order.   
  
Again, it’s mostly because they haven’t been worn.   
  
The bed creaks beneath him as John shifts. The weave of the rug grates on the soles of his feet. The callouses are mostly gone, softened by the embrace of zero-g. Any texture feels like acid on his skin.   
  
Lots of his body has changed since Five’s construction. Some muscles are weaker. Some are stronger. He can lift more on an overhead press than even Virgil, now. He’s got overdeveloped shoulder muscles and underdeveloped legs. Chicken legs, Alan called them. John manages a slight smile at that. That was rich, coming from Alan. But on Five, his arms have become his legs and he’s got upper body strength where he never had before. But his runner’s legs, the legs that got him athletics scholarships and fistfuls of gold, they’re gone.   
  
Most of those pants don’t fit any more, anyway.   
  
Sometimes, John thinks as he looks in the closet, it feels like the clothes don’t belong to him. They’re a stranger’s wrappings, a shroud hanging in the darkness, the occasional gold button winking out at him. Like a star. Sometimes he doesn’t know who he is any longer. Intellectually, he knows that this is his bed, his rug, his clothing, his room. But in his chest, deep down under the fleshy red of his muscles and the bright white of his bones, he doesn’t feel like it all belongs to him. It doesn’t feel like anything at all.   
  
John’s sitting in the side of the bed, facing the closet. The doors are open. But he’s not sure if he’s looking in or looking out.


End file.
